AP File PhotoDetroit's Greg Monroe might not be a great shot-blocker, but he can still be an excellent paint defender with quick hands and good positioning.

AUBURN HILLS -- One of the biggest holes on the Detroit Pistons' roster is a shot-blocking post presence. The team finished last in the NBA last season, averaging just 4.0 blocks per game, and didn't have a single player rank in the top 50.

Rookie Greg Monroe led the team with a paltry .6 blocks per game. The last Piston player to block more than a block a night was Rasheed Wallace, who averaged 1.68 swats during the 2007-08 season.

In 2010-11, the Pistons finished last in the league, allowing opponents to shoot 48.6 percent from the floor. They also gave up 44 points in the paint each night. Those numbers can't all be attributed to the lack of a shot-blocker on the roster, but it certainly didn't help.

New Pistons coach Lawrence Frank, who has put an early emphasis on getting the Pistons playing more fundamentally sound on the defensive end, said there's more to protecting the paint than blocking a shot.

"There are really five different paint consequences," Frank explained. "The first one is can you take a charge? If you take a charge, obviously the other team in penalized as well -- there's a foul on the offensive player. If you can block a shot, great, that's another paint consequence. If you can get a deflection, that's another one, a steal or an NBA foul."

During practice this week, Frank said three different players took charges, something he's strongly emphasized on teams he's coached in the past.

"I've been around teams where we've had three guys in the top 10 in charges taken," Frank said. "You just have got to do what you can do. It's like your skill set on offense -- stay within your strength zone -- same thing defensively."

A great example for the Pistons would be Glen Davis, who was with the Boston Celtics last season where Frank was an assistant. Never known as an explosive leaper, Davis averaged .5 blocks last season, but with good lateral quickness and excellent defensive awareness was one of the league leaders in charges drawn.

"All I know is this, you don't have to jump very high to take a charge," Frank said.

That's especially important for a player like Monroe, who registered a disappointing 29-inch vertical jump at the NBA pre-draft combine in 2010. And while he isn't a shot-blocking threat, Monroe was effective with some of Frank's other paint consequences last season, regularly causing deflections and finishing sixth among centers and power forwards with 1.16 steals per game.

Frank made one final point.

"Even if you look at it, having a shot blockers, doesn't necessarily guarantee you're going to be a good defensive team," Frank said.

Clearly that proved true last year as Washington's JaVale McGee and Minnesota's Darko Milicic both finished in the top five in the league in blocks per game, yet their teams finished in the bottom ten in points allowed, opponents field goal percentage and opponents' points in the paint.